Read: February 2019
Expected Publishing Date: March 26th, 2019
Rating: 3/5 stars
Ally Condie’s most recent novel, The Last Voyage of Poe Blythe, is a post-apocalyptic Hunger Games-esque narrative that contains Gold Rush aspects. In this, we follow Poe Blythe, a teenager who works as a machinist for the Outpost. We learn that she is bent on revenge after the death of her boyfriend Call by the Raiders, and once she becomes captain of the Outpost’s dredge, she finally has the opportunity to finally get some closure. However, her journey gives her more questions than clarity, and she doesn’t know who she can trust. This is a quick-paced read that is very easy to get through.
Unfortunately, though, I did not enjoy this novel despite it being so quick to get through. Firstly, I did not think there was enough world building; what is the Outpost, and what kind of landscape is it set in?; what caused this post-apocalyptic feel that has hints of the Hunger Games?; how primitive or advanced is this society in comparison to the real world? These are all questions I had about the setting of The Last Voyage of Poe Blythe that sadly were not answered. Additionally, I did not really observe there to be a strong plotline or conflict to drive the narrative forward. Yes, Poe and her crew were journeying to collect gold, and that there was confusion on who Poe could trust (whether it be her crew, the Admiral and the others from the Outpost, or the Raiders), but it wasn’t very compelling. That would be fine if the narrative was then carried by the characters, but once again I found this aspect to be lacking. I felt absolutely no connection to any of the characters, mostly because I did not fully understand their motives or get enough characterizations of them. Moreover, I thought the depictions of character development were missing; while the characters did change from beginning to end, I did not see any evidence of why these changes were occurring. Overall, I just felt this novel was lacking in its structure; neither the setting, plot, or characters were captivating enough to make this story worthwhile.